46
votes
Will there be millions of cicadas per acre when Brood X emerges this year?
According to Periodical cicada nymphs impose periodical oak tree wood accumulation Nature volume 287, pages 326–327 (1980):
Densities of cicadas underground are very great — Dybas and Davis report ...
- 104k
37
votes
Will there be millions of cicadas per acre when Brood X emerges this year?
"...the ground would practically be covered with them". Yes, this will happen. This cicada segment from the April 27th PBS News Hour at minute 3:42 shows the ground covered with cicadas (...
- 935
36
votes
Do termites produce 10 times more CO2 than humans?
Leaving aside the fact that termite CO2 production is on few, if any, secondary school syllabuses, its more complicated than that.
Termites are not burning fossil fuels. The carbon they produce comes ...
- 15.8k
16
votes
Is a writer named Lisa Holst responsible for the belief that everyone eats eight spiders a year?
As of roughly August 2021, per a note on Lemmino's video investigating the origins of Lisa Holst, Snopes founder David Mikkelson has admitted to fabricating the PC Professional article and the writer. ...
- 261
13
votes
Accepted
Are these bugs baffling entomologists with their appearance and behaviour?
As people have commented, NASA isn't particularly associated with entomologists, so that seems to be a bit of a red herring and unnecessary appeal to authority. So what if NASA is confused by these ...
- 9,247
11
votes
Is a writer named Lisa Holst responsible for the belief that everyone eats eight spiders a year?
No, an earlier list was published by Margot Anne-Stephanie Vigeant as author of the article Things to Stress Over in Cornell Engineer April 1992, volume 56, number 2, pages 24 and 25, (alternative ...
- 104k
11
votes
Accepted
Does switching the lights off help avoiding mosquitoes?
Q Does switching the lights off help avoiding mosquitoes?
In short: "yes",
but with so much caveats that ultimately the needed qualifier is "but it's not effective".
The caveats are: not all ...
- 44k
11
votes
Will there be millions of cicadas per acre when Brood X emerges this year?
This is in wooded areas. When they emerge from the ground, they don't stay there. They go up in the trees and make their loud buzzing noises. Here is a picture from the web...
SOURCE
- 1,547
5
votes
Accepted
Is there a species of locust-eating wasp that will check its burrow repeatedly if its food is moved?
It seems that Fabre's original claim has been greatly exaggerated by subsequent writers, and that the wasps are not nearly as stereotyped as those subsequent authors have claimed; Fabre's own ...
- 420
5
votes
Is a writer named Lisa Holst responsible for the belief that everyone eats eight spiders a year?
Youtuber Lemmino actually located the only possible magazine that matched the description and got a copy of the article sent to him and translated. It contained nothing relevant to the spider story. ...
- 59
4
votes
Is a writer named Lisa Holst responsible for the belief that everyone eats eight spiders a year?
Two points:
The publication of The Pedant's Revolt by Andrea Barham took place after the original Snopes article, not before. The first edition of the book was in 2005. The Snopes article first ...
4
votes
Accepted
Do cockroaches eat margarine?
It looks like there is some basis to this:
Attractiveness of Certain Popular Food Products to the German Cockroach, Blattella germanica, Adults under Field Conditions:
Oily Products: The data ...
- 728
3
votes
Accepted
Is the apparent drop in insect deaths on windshields due to a decline in insect populations?
The Question consists of three parts
1: Decline of insect populations.
Is there any substantial and robust decline of insects in a large enough space and timespan to consider it a general decline?
...
3
votes
Accepted
Do honeybees disrupt native pollinators in North America?
There is a recent review article covering this topic: Do managed bees have negative effects on wild bees?: A systematic review of the literature 8 December 2017, PLOSone:
Fifty-three percent of ...
- 104k
3
votes
Does swatting/killing a bee cause the hive to attack?
In Neurobiology of Chemical Communication., Chapter 5 - Chemical Communication in the Honey Bee Society, Section 5.1.2.5 Defensive Behavior: Alarm Pheromones details how trigger pheromones are ...
- 31
2
votes
Do these household substances repel wasps?
Research by Zhang QH et.al. in 2013 shows that for a category of wasps called yellow jackets, essential oils such as clove and peppermint showed significant repellency.
Of the 21 essential oils ...
- 22.7k
2
votes
Do you eat a certain number of spiders whilst you sleep?
The 1992 book Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences Student Workbook and Study Guide says:
b.This is a very low p, indicating that, over the long run, we can expect to swallow spiders only ...
- 104k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible